Wednesday, June 20, 2012

19 months and growing....

So amazing to watch Jackson grow each day.  He surprises us everyday with the new things that he is saying and doing.  At his 18 month check up he was 24lbs, still hanging out around the 30%.  His vocabulary is growing each day. He has about 25-30 words now.  He carries on extensive conversations that make us laugh.  He knows what he is saying but we can't quite make it all out yet.

He can say almost all of his family's names. 
Mama- which lately is Mommy.  Melts my heart
Dad and sometimes Daddy
"mimnie and Mimnie" for his dogs Mini and Mia
Gigi and Pops. He always has to draw out Poooooopppppsss.
"Unca B" and Aunt Desi. Surprisingly he can say Desi perfectly.  He is working on Kade. 
He had Aunt Lissa down good for about a week, of course the week she was on vacation.  Now the "s" part sounds more like a "d."  Randy is pretty clear but he doesn't say Uncle with it.
Aunt Lala has been the easiest from the begining and "Unca Gay." funny thing is Clay kept telling my mom she would be called "gay-gay" instead of Gigi, and Jack did for a while, but now the name stuck for him.
He can say Poppy but most of the time he choses to call him Papa, which Poppy likes too since that is what his dad was called and he always says how much Jackson reminds him of his dad. 
Peachy is getting clearer and clearer everytime he says it.
Aunt Courtney and Uncle Justin are tough ones.  He tries but not quite there yet.  We need nick names for them.  He calls my best friend Courtney "Co-Co" So we need something else.  Suggestions???
Emma and Addison or "Adda"

His absolute favorite thing to do lately is (still) play ball.  Now he is not only catching and throwing but also hitting a ball thrown to him or off a tee, and then he runs around the house like he is running the bases.  It is amazing to watch his eye coordination as he concentrates on the ball being thrown to him to make contact.  He can hit it with a good bit of force most of the time too. 

Summer time has been a blast with him so far this year. Last year he wasn't quite mobile so not too much to do with him. This month marks a year ago (June 29) for his first surgery.  Last month, Jack had a cardiac cath procedure done to balloon the conduit he had placed last year. We learned after this procedure that it may still be possible to repeat the ballon/stent if needed to prolong the time before another open heart surgery is needed.  We liked that news!  It made us laugh when the doctor was giving us the post op instructions when he said to keep Jack's activity low key.  I asked "what does that mean? He is a pretty active boy, even for a kid without a heart defect." He said just his normal activity is fine.  Good thing, cause I don't know how you tell an 18month old to sit and relax.  So...this summer we have had fun.